Spacecraft that could have landed in Uzbekistan finally falls to Earth

On May 10, the Soviet-era automatic space station "Kosmos-482", which had remained in Earth's orbit since 1972, re-entered the atmosphere and fell into the Indian Ocean. The Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed the incident in a statement.

According to Roscosmos, the spacecraft’s descent was tracked by an automated warning system designed to monitor hazardous space objects in near-Earth orbit.

Based on calculations by the Russian Central Research and Development Institute of Machine Building, "Kosmos-482" entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 09:24 Moscow time and crashed into the Indian Ocean, approximately 560 kilometers west of Middle Andaman Island, near Jakarta, Indonesia.

The spacecraft was originally launched in the spring of 1972 as part of a mission to study Venus. However, a malfunction in the power unit left it stranded in a highly elliptical Earth orbit. Over the decades, its orbit gradually decayed, bringing it closer to Earth.

Earlier assessments identified several potential re-entry zones, including Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. Uzbekistan was also considered a low-probability impact zone, with an estimated 0.3 to 0.5 percent chance of being affected.